In light of the latest allegations from the “All we want is the long form” crowd about President Obama’s long-form birth certificate, I’ve decided to illustrate some points with pieces of mine — but not the whole thing. You’ll have to wait for my presidential run for that, when I’m sure everyone will be clamoring for it (cough).

I’m doing this because what I have is not a newfangled digital copy of a short-form certificate, but a certified copy of the original long form dated March 4, 1983.

It's crooked...JUST LIKE IAN.

It’s through a sheer stroke of luck that I still have this birth certificate; I tossed it in the trash during a move in 1999, and had the can on the curb when I just happened to spot it among the refuse. I doubt that any replacement today would resemble that copy. But in either case, I can get a driver’s license, passport, etc. by showing it as proof.

I’m guessing it was the same deal with Obama. At some point between his first driver’s license/passport and his presidential candidacy, he apparently lost whatever document he had. Despite the birthers’ claims, that’s not some supernatural, conspiratorial force at play. That’s common.

The point of this exercise is to show that everything that naysayers question about Obama’s certificate can also be questioned about mine. In fact, mine might be worse. To say nothing of yours.

The new theory going around is that Obama’s long-form document is photoshopped, which can be clearly seen by stripping it of its layers. OOPS!! Way to think things out, co-conspirators!

The video below (and others I've watched so you don't have to) show that when you strip the letters, you see white space where they were. This is where they hope you're ignorant of how photoshop programs work. If it were a truly layered (altered) document, when you stripped off the text, you’d see an uninterrupted swath of green watermark (as you see when he draws and removes his own doodle). Stripping the letters off in the fashion shown in the video is the opposite of impressive — it’s a basic function of any photoshop program. And it proves not that they're right, but that the original image is static and Illustrator itself chops it up (these programs differentiate between text and background just as iPhoto won't saturate skin tones if you saturate a photo).

This guy cites differences in darkness between letters and within signatures as if it's the missing link and not, as I can attest from my own experience, a product of differing pressures with the pen. I encountered that issue years ago when I created a blog flag out of my handwriting. But even if this guy were 100 percent correct about his observations, it seems pretty lousy to waste alterations on a few letters of mom's last name rather than, say, everywhere else. He's not grasping at straws — he's grasping at molecules.

The green watermark on Obama's document is raising already-raised eyebrows, because it is uniform across the whole document rather than consistent with the bent document. Do I even have to point out how ridiculous this is? The paper on which the copy is printed is green, not the certificate itself. This is done for the same reason automobile titles and dollar bills get printed this way— so that you know it’s official paper, not just some hack print job done with any widely available stock. As seen above, my COLB has the same copy method, but on plain white rag. Because of this, mine has an official, raised seal.

Oh, about that seal. See, some birthers are complaining that Obama's document has no seal. Well, there’s no seal because the one in the binder doesn’t get one. Copies have in the past, like the digital version that Obama offered up in 2008. What this long-form copy has instead of a seal is the special green paper and a signature stamp. Similarly, the most recent copies of my university transcript (from 2011) don’t have embossed seals, though older ones did. When I asked why this was the case, they said it was because the newer paper stock had it within. Same applies here.

The oft-noted four-day discrepancy between the president's date of birth and date of filing is abnormal only in its relative speed. As you can see, mine took twice as long to file as his.

I would bet that everyone’s has this discrepancy, for the simple fact that paperwork is slow and tedious. Though in Obama's case, I suppose there's an off chance that a bunch of conspiracy stuff happened in that four-day span. I’ve already outlined that conversation in detail.

I hope this is the death of the birth talk for me, but somehow I doubt it. This “issue” is the kind of thing that takes on a life of its own, and after you shoot holes in it, becomes a zombie. Or born again. Whichever heavy-handed reference works better.

2 comments:

i hope it's achingly, embarrassingly obvious to all the pettiest detractors that while they were clamoring for an irrelevant piece of paper, essentially obstructing the real business of running the country, the capture of osama bin laden was actually unfolding behind closed doors. i propose that anyone who attempts to resurrect the non-issue of the president's citizenship past this point be referred to sincerely as an afterbirther.

When I was born there was no long form, only the hospital birth certificate. the one where the doctor signed. 34 years later we got one of my son when he was born, including foot print, but the state got an amended version. I imagine now if info sent digitally, long form would be none existent. The state is only interested in, who, when and the parents names.The state is basically just counting.

I am amazed at old folks like me, some whose birth record may be only in the family bible, quibble over some long form.